Arts of Healing: Cultural Narratives of Trauma (Critical Perspectives on Theory, Culture and Politics)

This book occurs at the intersection of philosophy, critical theory, psychoanalysis and the visual arts. Each chapter looks at art produced in various traumatogenic cultures: detention centres, post-Holocaust film, autobiography and many more.Other chapters look at the Juarez femicides, the production of collective memory, of makeshift memorials, acts of forgiveness and contemporary forms of trauma. The book proposes new ways of 'thinking trauma', foregrounding the possibility of healing and the task that the critical humanities has to play in this healing. Where is its place in an increasingly terror-haunted world, where personal and collective trauma is as much of an everyday occurrence as it is incomprehensible? What has become known as the 'classical model of trauma' has foregrounded the unrepresentability of the traumatic event. New, revisionist approaches seek to move beyond an aporetic understanding of trauma, investigating both intersubjective and intrasubjective psychic processes of healing. Traumatic memory is not always verbal and 'iconic' forms of communication are part of the arts of healing. This book occurs at the intersection of philosophy, critical theory, psychoanalysis and the visual arts. Each chapter looks at art produced in various traumatogenic cultures: detention centres, post-Holocaust film, autobiography and many more. Other chapters look at the Juarez femicides, the production of collective memory, of makeshift memorials, acts of forgiveness and contemporary forms of trauma. The book proposes new ways of 'thinking trauma', foregrounding the possibility of healing and the task that the critical humanities has to play in this healing. Where is its place in an increasingly terror-haunted world, where personal and collective trauma is as much of an everyday occurrence as it is incomprehensible? What has become known as the 'classical model of trauma' has foregrounded the unrepresentability of the traumatic event. New, revisionist approaches seek to move beyond an aporetic understanding of trauma, investigating both intersubjective and intrasubjective psychic processes of healing. Traumatic memory is not always verbal and 'iconic' forms of communication are part of the arts of healing Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: Holocaust Trauma and the Ambivalence of Healing: Irreverent Takes 1. Unfamiliar Healing 2. Forgiving as Self-Healing? 3. (Mis)RepresentingTrauma through Humour? Part II: Mass Trauma, Art and the Healing Politics of Place 4. Improving Public Space 5. Transforming Trauma into Memory 6. Textures of Indian Memory 7. How Do We Mourn? Part III. Intimate Healing 8. Literature between Antidote and Black Magic 9. Queer Trauma, Paternal Loss and Graphic Healing in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic 10. Concrete Loss 11. The Monstrosity of the New Wounded Index About the Editors and Contributors